The Dark Swan
The Dark Swan Episode Number: Season 5, Episode 1 Directed By: Ron Underwood Air Date: September 27, 2015 Previous Episode: Operation Mongoose, Part 2 Next Episode The Price "The Dark Swan" is the first episode of Season 5 of the American fairytale/drama series Once Upon a Time, which aired on September 27, 2015. In this episode, the events of Emma Swan being consumed by the darkness have left the residents of Storybrooke without "The Savior," leaving Regina, Mary Margaret, Hook, David, Henry, Robin Hood, and Belle to find a way to save her, even if it means turning to an unlikely individual that they cannot trust. Meanwhile, Emma finds herself in the Enchanted Forest where she encounters Merida en route to Camelot in her search for Merlin before the darkness consumes her for good. Commentators gave the episode positive reviews, citing the episode's dark and more human tone following the events of the fourth season finale. Plot 'Opening Sequence' Granny's Diner is shown in the forest. 'Event Chronology' The Land Without Magic flashbacks take place in 1989, a few years after the events of "The Stranger" and a few years before "Snow Drifts". The Camelot flashbacks take place immediately before the scene where King Arthur shows Excalibur to his subjects in "The Broken Kingdom" and before Lancelot's banishment in the same episode. The Enchanted Forest events take place after "Fall" and before "The Broken Kingdom". The Storybrooke events take place after "Operation Mongoose, Part 2" and the present Camelot events take place years after Lancelot's banishment, and before "The Price". 'In the Character's Past' In a movie theater in 1989 Minneapolis, Minnesota, a young Emma is watching The Sword in the Stone. She steals a woman's candy bar, and is approached by an usher, who tells Emma "Don't do it". She expects him to reprimand her, but he instead offers her advice by saying, "When you do something that you're not supposed to do, even if you're doing it for the right reason, bad things will happen". He also mentions that she will have the opportunity to remove Excalibur from its stone and warns her not to touch it, just before he disappears. King Arthur and two of his knights, Sir Lancelot and Sir Percival, arrive to the location of the stone in which Excalibur is embedded. Sir Kay has found it first and as he tries to pull the sword out, he is turned to ash. Despite this, Arthur proceeds with his mission and manages to successfully pull the sword out, only to discover that the tip is missing. He vows to seek out the missing piece, which is revealed to be the blade of the Dark One's dagger. 'Storybrooke' Just moments after Emma harnessd the powers of the Dark One and vanished, leaving behind only the dagger with her name on it, everyone is left stunned, bewildered, and angry at each other. While Regina is furious over what Emma has done, Mary Margaret still believes that Emma has good in her and that she can be saved. Hook takes the dagger to summon her back, but to no avail; as Regina explains, Emma has gone to a different world. Later, they learn from The Apprentice that Emma is now in the Enchanted Forest and he has a wand that was given to him by Merlin, which contains all of the light magic, which can help them find Emma, but open a portal to another realm if it is wielded with "two sides of the coin", the light and the dark. The Apprentice dies and drops the wand; Regina picks up the wand but cannot use it, as she no longer has darkness anymore; they need someone "wicked". Regina and Robin Hood go to the hospital ward to see Zelena. Zelena agrees to help if she could see the wand, but needs something meaningful to Emma so the spell will work. She also cannot use her magic unless Regina removes the cuff that is restricting Zelena's magic. Regina refuses. Later, at Granny's, Hook and Henry formulate a plan to release Zelena. However, their plan backfires, and Zelena breaks free from the cell after cutting off her hand to remove the magic cuff. Zelena takes Robin captive and trades him for the wand, which she intends to use to return to Oz. As Zelena opens a portal, which takes the form of a cyclone and substantially drains her powers, Regina takes advantage of Zelena's weakened powers to put the cuff back on her wrist, as well as to redirect the portal to take them to the Enchanted Forest, using Emma's blanket to locate her. The cyclone immediately heads towards Granny's Diner, and transports everyone in the establishment to the location of Emma's whereabouts. Six weeks after the group entered Camelot, they awaken in Granny's Diner, back in Storybrooke, where they are wearing Arthurian attire. However, they also find that their memory ends with them entering Camelot. To make matters worse, Emma has embraced the darkness, acquired the Dark One's Dagger, and vows revenge against the others for failing her. 'In the Enchanted Forest' Emma emerges in the Enchanted Forest through the Vault of the Dark One, and finds herself haunted by the voice of the darkness inside of her, which has manifested as a personification of Rumplestiltskin. She struggles to resist, and vows not to hurt her family. Then, Emma runs up to a peddler, only to become consumed by Rumplestiltskin's guidance, to the point of nearly using her dark magic to kill the peddler. The Dark One guides Emma through using a transportation spell, and she sees a will-o-the-wisp. The Dark One tells her that for the Wisp to answer her question, she will have to catch it. As she chases it, Emma comes upon a red-headed archer named Merida, who nabs the wisp and places it in her bag. Emma confronts Merida, accidentally using dark magic, and tries to convince her that she needs it to find Merlin. Merida is reluctant to trust Emma, but decides to go with her, keeping the wisp in her bag. Merida informs Emma that more wisps can are born at the Hill of Stones, so they head in that direction. Emma learns that Merida needs the wisp in order to find out what happened to her triplet younger brothers and restore her family's kingdom. After they make camp for the night, the manifestation of Rumplestiltskin tries to guide Emma into betraying Merida once they reach the home of the wisps. The manifestation of Rumplestiltskin tells Emma that once Merida speaks into the Wisp, it will continue to do her bidding until she dies, and thus, the only solution would then be for Emma to kill her. Merida overhears the conversation, and sneaks off to the Hill of Stones by herself. Emma catches up with her in the morning and is goaded by Rumplestiltskin's manifestation, against her better judgment and good nature, to rip Merida's heart out. Before Emma can crush the heart, Hook appears with the others and stops her. Once everything has settled down, Mary Margaret hands Emma the dagger; however, Emma, believing that carrying the dagger would give her too much power, wants someone else to possess it. She decides to give the dagger to Regina, since she would be the only one capable of killing Emma, if necessary. Moments later, King Arthur and some of his knights arrive on horseback in order to proclaim that they have been awaiting Emma's arrival. Arthur believes that Emma will be able to reunite them with Merlin, and everyone involved joins forces on their quest en route to Camelot. Cast Starring *Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White/Mary Margaret Blanchard *Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan *Lana Parrilla as The Evil Queen/Regina Mills *Josh Dallas as Prince Charming/David Nolan/Prince James *Emilie de Ravin as Belle *Colin O'Donoghue as Hook *Jared S. Gilmore as Henry Mills *Rebecca Mader as The Wicked Witch/Zelena *Sean Maguire as Robin Hood *Robert Carlyle as Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold Guest Starring *Liam Garrigan as King Arthur *Elliot Knight as Merlin *Amy Manson as Merida *Lee Arenberg as Grumpy/Leroy *Beverley Elliot as Granny *Keegan Connor Tracy as The Blue Fairy/Mother Superior *Sinqua Walls as Sir Lancelot *Andrew Jenkins as Sir Percival *Lee Majdoub as Sir Kay *Timothy Webber as The Apprentice *Faustino di Bauda as Sleepy/Walter *Gabe Khouth as Sneezy/Tom Clark *Michael Coleman as Happy *David Paul Grove as Doc *Mig Macario as Bashful *Jeffrey Kaiser as Dopey *Raphael Alejandro as Roland *Ingrid Torrance as Nurse Ratched *McKenna Grace as Young Emma Swan Trivia Production Notes= *The title card features Granny's Diner in the woods. *The title of this episode was leaked by Mark Isham via his Instagram account on June 30, 2015, and officially announced by Adam Horowitz via his Twitter account on July 7, 2015. *Merlin was originally not set to appear in the season premiere. *According to Amy Manson, Merida's storyline on Once Upon a Time takes place ten years after Brave's movie events. *Henry mentions that Regina uses his birthday for all of her passwords, including the one for the entrance to the psychiatric ward. In "A Tale of Two Sisters", Regina types 815 as the password for the psychiatric ward, meaning that Henry's birthday is August 15. *Zelena cutting off her own hand with a knife, was based on a sequence from the script for the Season Four episode "The Apprentice", in which Hook cut off his re-attached hand with a "meat cleaver or something". However, the network thought this would be far too dramatic. The idea was used for this episode instead. *The scenes with Emma and Merida at the Hill of Stones was originally written as one scene, but during editing, they decided that it would play better if the scene was cut in two, with the diner scene between them. |-|Other Notes= FILMING LOCATIONS *The interior scenes at the State Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, were filmed at the Dunbar Theatre in Vancouver. *Minaty Bay (north of Steveston Village) doubles as Camelot for the beach scene with King Arthur, Lancelot and Percival. *The Hill of Stones scenes were filmed in Robert Burnaby Park in East Burnaby. *The diner scene in the Enchanted Forest and the Camelot scene where Emma and her friends enter King Arthur's castle, were filmed in Burnaby's Central Park.